


DBH: Illuminate- Coffee Break- Broken Nose

by TheShadowsmiths



Series: DBH: Illuminate [13]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: DBHIlluminate, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-12
Updated: 2019-06-12
Packaged: 2020-05-02 07:00:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19194019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheShadowsmiths/pseuds/TheShadowsmiths
Summary: What drives a man to hate the world so much that he would close himself off to it?Chapter art by --optcldrift





	DBH: Illuminate- Coffee Break- Broken Nose

**Author's Note:**

> Find this on:
> 
>  
> 
> **Deviantart: **[[ Coffee Break- Broken Nose ]](http://fav.me/dd96qn6)  
> ****  
>  **Tumblr:** [[ Coffee Break- Broken Nose ]](https://dbhilluminate.tumblr.com/post/186610451489/dbh-illuminate-coffee-break-broken-nose)
> 
> **Recommended listening:["Hallelujah" - Brian Crain](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6oSjxckQLA)**
> 
> **Chapter art by:[Optcldrift](https://www.instagram.com/optcldrift/?hl=en)**
> 
> \---
> 
> If you like our work, please consider [[ joining our discord ]](https://discord.gg/AfteugU) for a catalogue of character bios and a glossary of terms, or dropping by [[ Detroit: New ERA ]](https://discord.gg/ec69ttR)'s Discord and the [[ Detroit: Become Human Official Amino ]](https://aminoapps.com/c/detroitbecomhumanofficial/page/user/dbh-illuminate/Bvad_jPsbfozYpNPN1j2aeQNde3eEED2RZ) to let the MODs know! It would really help us out!

**  
**

**January 2nd, 2020- 7PM**

_It wasn’t supposed to be like this._

Gavin stared at the far wall at the other end of his hospital bed and fingered the class ring around his middle finger- not his, but a friend’s, once belonging to someone more important to him than the shitty people that dare called themselves his family.  
Yeah, that’s right, _once_. That is until about two days ago.

Cameron was the only person who’d ever truly understood him, and probably the only _real_ friend he ever had. Gavin had just turned seven when they’d met in elementary school, in the fall of 2009. Cam’s dad had just been arrested for the third time that year on domestic dispute charges, and some of their asshole classmates had decided to pick at him for having a deadbeat dad while he was still very raw; but that day he just couldn’t take it anymore, and he lashed out like a cornered animal.  
That was the first time Reed had really _seen_ him as more than just the wallflower everyone seemed to ignore. Because even while pinned to the ground and outnumbered, Cam fought tooth and nail, through snarling lips and furious eyes that screamed about how even though he was just eight years old at the time, he had already run out of shits to give.  
And that day, so had Gavin.  
He’d pulled one of the boys off him and thrown him to the ground, kicked him in the stomach, then dropped to his knees and punched him until his teeth chipped and his lip bled and he cried for teacher’s help because the kid was too chickenshit to finish what he’d started. And it felt _good_ , because that day he’d found his twisted soul mate- one that was every bit the raging bull ready to gore the first jackass to wave a red fucking cape in his face, and one he would have taken on the whole goddamn world with if meant he had a friend to ride or die for by his side. Truth was, deep down, Cam was just as broken, and angry, and fucked up as himself; but, and he came to learn, he was also hopeful, gentle, and courageous, everything he never thought himself to be. And that was why he’d liked him so much.

Cam had been given nothing in his entire life, until he meet Gavin Reed- and as far as he was concerned, from the moment he’d squinted over at him with that toothless, ear-to-ear grin while they sat outside the principal’s office that day awaiting their punishment, he was his white fucking knight. When he realized he rarely ate, Gavin gave him his lunch because he could tough out a little hunger, because he knew he could at least eat later. When he needed money, Reed would hand him his allowance without even asking what it was for. And when the bullies came knocking, he stood by him back to back, better or worse, no matter the cost. Cam didn’t feel he deserved a friend like Reed, but neither did Reed think he deserved a friend like Cam- because no one had ever before loved either of them like a brother, and because no one had ever told them they were worthy of _being_ loved as such.  
See, Cam came from a broken home- he was an only child, but his mother was an alcoholic, and his father an abusive asshole who’d been in and out of prison since he was five years old. Cam had gotten his first split lip for mouthing off to him when he was nine, got his first job when he was thirteen just to put food on the table so he wouldn’t starve. He’d wound up in juvenile hall for stealing a car when he was seventeen, because he needed it to get to and from work but couldn’t afford to get his dead one fixed. Even still, in spite of all that he’d spit the blood out of his mouth, look hardship in the eye, give it a big old shit eating grin and say “fuck you, not today.” Cam was a survivor, scrappy and resourceful- never did enough to get into real trouble, but always just enough to keep his head above water.

Reed on the other hand had been born into a family of prodigies, raised by a nanny in the shadows of Fortune 500 parents and siblings whose coattails had always been just too far out of reach. They’d found their true callings before they’d even hit puberty ( _one now a nationally sought-after defense attorney, the other a Cyberlife engineer_ ), while he was left behind, isolated and aimless: a gifted jock with a bad attitude that couldn’t play nice, that no coach in their right mind would have wanted on their team if not for his talent. Because of it, his relationship with his parents had always been strained, and they’d eventually grown so sick of it they’d threatened to cut him off from their money if he didn’t make something of himself. But Gavin didn’t care, because he wasn’t like them. He didn’t measure success as digits in a bank account or his picture on the cover of TIME magazine- his idea of success was pulling himself up out of the mud after being knocked down time and time again. It was bloody knuckles and black eyes and being able to throw up a strong middle finger in the face of those who claimed he wouldn’t amount to anything. Because his idea of success had been molded in the image of the one person who had always accepted him as he was and stood by his side...  
Until now. And he had no one to blame but himself.

They’d had a plan to grab everything they could throw into the back of his Chevy Nova and get the hell out of Detroit while the rest of the world celebrated the new year, before their families could even notice they were gone. It was supposed to be their fresh start, their chance at a better life, to escape the abuse and the toxic expectations that they were supposed to be anyone other than who they were: black sheep, troubled kids, the ones “with issues running so deep” adults had labeled them hopeless.  
The coroner’s report said he’d died on impact, but unfortunately for him Gavin knew that wasn’t true. What had really happened would haunt him for the rest of his life, and he’d take it to his grave to protect Cam’s mother from the truth. It had only taken seconds for their lives to change, but when he realized what was about to happen, Cam had closed his eyes and gripped his hand strong as a vice, and braced for impact. The sedan hit them nearly head-on on the passenger side at eighty-seven miles per hour and pushed the car two hundred feet before they were struck from behind by a truck, which hit them so hard it rolled them twice before the Nova settled onto its side in the middle of the road. When Gavin opened his eyes, he was pinned between the seat and the steel frame of the car, forced to watch as the light faded from Cam’s green eyes as he bled out. In his final moments, as the blood gurgled from between his lips and streamed down his forehead, Cam had cracked a concerned smile and forced out one last sentiment before he passed.

_You can still be happy._

Anger bubbled up inside of him, and eighteen-year-old Reed balled his still-good hand into a quivering, white-knuckled fist, twisted his face into a despondent grimace, and choked on his grief. Why would he have said that? How could he have possibly thought that, of all things, that would be what he needed to hear? Not “I forgive you”, not “This isn’t your fault”. He _had_ to have known he was going to blame himself, he had to have known he was going to need his forgiveness.  
So why _that_? This absolute load of _bullshit_ … He couldn’t imagine a future where he could be, because no matter where he went, no matter what he did, Cam had always been a part of it. So how the hell was he supposed to move on and be happy without him?

Gavin grimaced as he moved the casted arm off his lap and laid it on the bed beside him. The surgeon who had pieced it back together said it had been crushed by the weight of the vehicle when it had rolled, one of the worst comminuted fractures he’d ever seen: twelve pins and a two plates. He’d be in therapy for the next six months, but “at least he’d gotten away with his life”.  
Apparently he was “lucky”, at least that was the word they kept throwing around. That’s what they’d said about the gash in his broken nose when they’d pried his head from between a folded-over support beam that had nearly crushed his skull like an overripe watermelon. First responders said he should have been dead, and in all honesty? He wished he was, because at least then he wouldn’t have to live with the guilt of knowing Cam’s death was on his hands because he couldn’t get out of the way fast enough, or his mother crying at his bedside, hysterical, reminding him of how much he’d meant to her son. If he hadn’t lived through the crash, he wouldn’t have had to grin and bear his parents blaming the accident on their attempted runaway, and not the jackass driving on the wrong side of the road. If he were dead he wouldn’t have to continue living without the only person he’d ever been bothered to give a shit about.

Gavin glanced out the window into the night but scowled when he instead saw his sorry reflection staring back at him- his head bandaged, left eye wrapped up beneath an eyepatch, the stitches on his nose still stained with iodine under a wad of gauze. With a scar like that, it was going to be _impossible_ to put this behind him and move on, because he’d be reminded of it every time he looked in the goddamn mirror.  
He roared out an angry scream into the empty room and flung the dinner tray at the wall with all his residual strength, and wept quietly as the medical staff went about their business outside the glass doors of his room in the intensive care unit. Again he was alone in the world, and he wasn’t at all ready for it.

 

Following the accident, his parents forced him to get a job and start paying his expenses, in addition to applying to a University and “planning for his future”- a fucking slap in the face if he’d ever been. But because he was out of options he’d done everything they asked so he wouldn’t have to hear their bitching, and kept his cards close to his chest. Gavin took the money they’d given him and paid his tuition in full, separating his self-earned assets until he was fully self-sufficient, and bode his time until he could break out from under their ironclad grip of control. It took longer than he’d wanted, but eight years later, after he’d graduated with his Master’s Degree in Criminal Justice, Gavin severed the ties that had been hanging by a thread for so long.  
The ensuing blowout was explosive and violent, but he was prepared. For the first time that he remembered his father struck him, but he’d just spit out the blood and laughed in his face- because if he was trying to motivate him to stay, all he had done was drive him further in the opposite direction, as he had done all his life; and if he was trying to scare him, well, Gavin had been through so much worse. He’d threatened to take back everything they’d given him, but Gavin just reminded him the money was already spent. When he threatened to take away his car and stop paying his rent, Reed informed them that his neither of their name were on the pink slip for his car or the lease on his apartment, because he’d already been paying all his expenses for four years. And when he’d finally run out of leverage, Gavin had flipped him a strong middle finger, left them with three strong parting words he’d been waiting all his life to say, and never looked back.

Three weeks later he’d already breezed through a rigorous first week in DCPD’s Police Academy, and shot up to the top of his class without breaking a sweat. During his college years he’d learned just enough about communication to get by in the academy, but friends were another story. There had been a few, but they hadn’t stuck around long once they realized just how much baggage he was dragging. Being stuck in the academy with a bunch of straight-and-narrow Johnny-law types only served to reinforce his desire to remain in complete isolation, with no friends _or_ lovers.  
Gavin had tried putting himself out there now and again, only to have it backfire in his face after a few weeks ( _or in some cases, a few days_ ), which had caught him a lot of flack from the hyper-masculine would-be cops in training alongside him, but he just shrugged it off. “ _What’s the matter, Reed? You gay?_ ” was one they threw around a lot thinking it would get a rise out of him, but were disappointed when they were instead met with apathy and eyes rolled all the way back as far as they could go. Maybe a little, but that wasn’t the reason he’d broken off every relationship he’d had before it had time to mature. Truth was, every time someone found out his family name they were real quick to turn up the charm, and nothing pissed him off quicker than some fake fuck who just wanted to use his father’s name to boost their social status. The Reed name meant jack shit to the family reject, he wasn’t special and he knew it. That’s why he’d done all this -not for the approval of distant, dissatisfied parents, not for the fame, not for the fortune- _for himself_ and for the promise he’d made to uphold Cam’s wish for him, even if he hadn’t understood it at the time. Gavin had followed his own self-made path, just like they’d planned, and he’d done it by keeping fame-chasing, two-dimensional, “background characters” out of his life.  
But he hadn’t _just_ chased them off because they were shallow as shit ( _because hell, even the ones that hadn’t cared about where he came from eventually came to grate on his nerves like sandpaper on glass_ ), it was because they couldn’t see the world from his point of view, because none of them had _truly_ understood him- not like Cam. No one ever had.  
Well, except for Cam.

For the first few months of his career Reed walked to and from work, just _daring_ the city to take a swing, to throw him something - a robbery, a break in, a drunk dude trying to take advantage of a woman outside a bar - _anything_ to scratch the itch of a good fight; but, like many things in life, it didn’t quite turn out how he’d hoped.  
Gavin never really had been one for religion or sentimentalism, but that night after nearly twenty-seven years of his miserable existence, he found himself believing that wayward souls could return to take care of unfinished business. Any other day Reed wouldn’t have given a second glance to a stray dog snarling at him as he passed, but it wasn’t snarling at him. It had something cornered.  
It took him all of five seconds to realize that _something_ was a six-month-old kitten -hissing and clawing, furious and frantic- and as he trembled in recognition, instinct set in. A short sprint and one hard swing kicked hard across the dog’s rib cage sent it yelping and whimpering down the alley as he scooped up the animal and cradled it in his arms. To his surprise, tortoiseshell kitten didn’t struggle to escape his embrace, just squinted up at him and slumped into the crook of his arm with a tired sigh as if to say “ _Finally_ , I’ve found you”. And for just one night, as he stared into the grateful green eyes of the soul he already knew so well, Gavin believed in life beyond death. Cam had come back to him. He wasn’t sure what he’d done to deserve such a gift, but he didn’t care, because with Cam back in the picture, everything became more tolerable. Coming home to his best friend at the end of a long day and being met with excited meows and a running leap up into his arms made all the bullshit worth it.  
As the years passed he thought about the accident less and less. With the help of an impressive rate of closure on his cases, Reed continued to climb the ranks at his job and traded the title of Officer for Detective with the minimum experience necessary for the position. It had taken him eighteen years to make good on Cam’s wish for him, and while life wasn’t perfect, he was at least on his way to being happy, and that was all that mattered.  
For a while.

 

**November 13th, 2038- 10:30AM**

Morning came hard after a restless night on the couch, and he ripped open his eyes with a sharp breath to the sound of purring and a prickly weight on his chest. The ginger and brown tortoiseshell cat stretched and contracted his toes as he kneaded at the detective’s neck and drooled into his shirt. Gavin let out a tired sigh and laid his arm over his eyes and clammy forehead to rest his mind for a minute, then reached to scratch the cat’s neck behind its ears. The old boy hunkered down with a happy, fluttery chirp, and he closed his eyes and listened to the soothing vibration.  
It had been a while since he’d dreamt of the crash- maybe a few months, maybe half a year, he wasn’t entirely sure. The way the days had blurred one into the next over the last five years since he’d become a detective, didn’t lend much help to his awareness of the passage of time. It had been eighteen years now since Cam’s death, and even though it had gotten easier to live without him, it still stung like hell every time he thought about it.

Reed traced his fingertips over the scar across his nose for a moment of deep thought, but cleared it from his mind as he rubbed the hurt from his raccoon-eyes with the heel of the hand on his still-good arm and stretched his legs out long. Cam shifted with a quiet meow and crawled up higher onto his shoulder to nuzzle under his jawline. Gavin let out a painful chuckle as the ten-pound cat crawled over the sling and sputtered a gentle “ _fuck_ ” under his breath as the pain resurfaced and shot through his shoulder like tearing muscle.  
He was lucky the reconstructed AR’s the deviants were using only fired nine millimeter rounds and not the standard five-five-six. Smaller bullets meant his shoulder wasn’t nearly as torn up as it could have been, but even with the treatment he’d received to speed up the healing process ( _stem cells, 3-d printed right in to fill the wound_ ), the pain was still pretty bad. Throbbing when it wasn’t stabbing, aching when it wasn’t burning- until the stem cells fused with the muscle, it was going to be an annoying recovery process.

The morning silence didn’t last long- almost as if he had woken up just to take the call, Viv’s name lit up the screen and triggered the ring.

_Get up, get up, get a move on. Get up, get up, what’s takin’ so looooo~ng? Get up, get up, get a move on. Stop stallin’, I’m callin’-_

Gavin groaned as he reached for the screaming cell phone in his pocket and lifted it to his ear with a, “Wha’dya want, Viv?” Couldn’t even have ten minutes to himself before getting back to the bullshit.  
“Oh, _good_ , you’re awake,” she replied with a relieved breath. “How are you feeling today?”  
Before he answered, he tried lifting his right arm up to the shoulder, but yipped and groaned in her ear before shaking his head with an angry scrunch of his lips. “ _Not great_ ,” his voice cracked in annoyed reply, at which she sighed and paused before asking.  
“You sober, at least?”  
“I’ve been sleepin’ since Connor dropped me off last night,” he assured as he tried to nudge the cat away from brushing its face with the stubble on his chin.  
“Well, we still have work to do, are you gonna make it today?” she asked as he sat up and pushed the cat off his stomach, ignoring the low growl from the old boy, then fumbled with the lid of the rattling bottle of pills with a shaking hand.  
“I’ll be fine,” he fibbed, dumping out a pill into the lid as it finally popped off. “I can still shoot straight with my left hand.”  
He could hear Vivienne chuckling and imagined her shaking her head at his stubbornness. “Well, get up and get dressed. I’ll be over in half an hour to pick you up,” she informed.  
“Don’ bother, I’ve got a bike,” he mumbled as he balanced the pill on his tongue and reached for the glass of water on the coffee table.  
“Do you have a death wish, or are you _really_ just as stupid as you look!?”  
In spite of how indelicately she’d phrased it, the shrill panic still carried in her tone, and he grinned to himself, appreciative of her concern. No one had ever really given him shit for taking unnecessary risks, because nobody would have missed him if he was gone.  
“ _No_ , you stay put. You get on that death trap with your arm in a sling and I swear to God, Reed, I _will_ arrest you.”  
“Alright, ma. I’ll sit tight,” he quipped back and ended the call with a “See ya,” before she could protest with her angry huffs. The phone dropped onto the sofa beside him and he dragged his hand down his face as he took in a slow, deep breath, then peered between his fingers over at the cat, who was sitting next to him with a judgmental squint.

“Don’t look at me like that Cam, she ain’t so bad,” he explained as if the cat could actually understand what he was saying. When the animal rose and climbed back into his lap, Gavin’s hand reached instinctively to scratch at the back of his neck with a small sigh. She really wasn’t, in fact he’d really grown to like Viv more than he thought he would. Even though their partnership had started off rough, she’d still cared more for his well-being than even his own mother ever had. It was strange to have that kind of support for once, but he’d already noticed how much he’d benefited from her presence in his life. Maybe it _was_ possible to find the family he’d always wished he had... maybe even find love.  
Reed sputtered our a laugh at the absurdity of the notion in self-defense, but deep down in the scarcely touched recesses of his dark heart he hoped. It wasn’t like he _wanted_ to be a miserable asshole, it was just what the world had forced him to become.


End file.
